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It's Psychedelic Baby Magazine

It's Psychedelic Baby is an independent, music magazine. We are covering alternative, underground, non-commercial and non-mainstream artists in variety of shapes and genres. Exclusive interviews, reviews and articles. A place where musicians can express themselves. We serve an international readership.

Following up his Album of The Year-winning
debut Innerspeaker, Perth multi-instrumentalist Kevin Parker went for a more
accessible, poppier sound on Lonerism. The stomping opening to “Be Above It”
features the ambient sound of someone walking down the street past his hotel
and this thematic use of found sounds features prominently throughout the
album. Todd Rundgren was another huge influence, particularly the cheesy,
disposable synth pop of his early 70s albums Runt and A Wizard, A True Star.
Bubbly confections like “Endors Toi” and “Apocalypse Dreams” also display an
appreciation for the quirky, Beatles-cum-Beach Boys effervescence of the
Elephant 6 stable of artists such as Olivia Tremor Control and the
walking-on-air ear candy of Pink Hedgehoggers Cheese (cf. Enlarge Your Johnson)
and Garfield’s Birthday (try Let Them Eat Cake).

Parker’s
soaring vocal harmonies all seem to be treated with treacle and effects that
give the impression they’re floating on a breeze from somewhere down the block,
catching your attention here and there to interrupt your daily revelry and wrap
your troubles in a marshmallow overcoat. The slow-motion effect of swimming in
meringue permeates dreamy, 60s’-flavored concoctions like “Why Won’t They Talk To Me” and “Feels
Like We Only Go Backwards”, leaving a pleasant John Lennon-fronting-Strawberry
Alarm Clock taste in our ears tempered with liberal doses of like-minded,
latter day enthusiasts like Anton Barbeau and Norwegian Øyvind Holm (cf.
Dipsomaniacs).

Minor
reservations about the tinny drum sound, Parker’s unimaginative drum(machine)
fills, and the occasional production overindulgences (some tracks like “Keep On
Lying” and "Nothing That Has Happened So Far Has Been Anything We Could
Control" just go on interminably with little more than loopy sound bytes
or overdramatic drumming to add to the proceedings) can be overlooked in favor
of the enjoyable trappings enveloping most of the tunes, particularly the
unforgettable, brain rattling “chunka-chunka-chunka” drive of “Elephant”,
perhaps his most familiar creation so far.

A
worthy follow-up shows that Parker has not lost his touch for crafting
wonderfully memorable pop tunes, but he has to be careful not to fall into a
rut and risk rehashing the same material. His decision to record everything
himself yields an inherent sameness to his albums that might benefit from the
addition of some of the live band members to the recording sessions to expand
the bass or drum sound and relieve some of the potential monotony. But as long
as the listener understands what’s in store, there’s no reason Parker’s Tame
Impala releases to date can’t stand proudly alongside the best of other “one
man bands” like Rundgren, Prince, Nick (Bevis Frond) Saloman, Karl (World
Party) Wallinger, Kurt (Ultra Vivid Scene) Ralske, et. al.

Quick – name a female-fronted power trio.
Female guitar goddesses are few and far between – the short list includes
obvious choices like Lita Ford (The Runaways) and the late Kelly Johnson
(Girlschool), but there are other accomplished string benders that have been
flying under the radar and Norwegian Hedvig Mollestad Thommassen should be at
the top of your list of guitar heroines worthy of serious investigation. Her
trio (including bassist Ellen Brekken and drummer Ivar Loe Bjørnstad) delivers
a barnstorming set of fire-breathing instrumentals that’ll set your pulse
a-throbbing and your head a-banging.

Right
from the start, “Sing, Goddess” sets the scene for a tight collection of
explosive, riff-driven rockers that’ll pummel your brain into a freakazoid
frenzy. “Lake Acid” adds some jazzy licks to the attack and answers
emphatically that chicks can play Hendrix. If Sabbathian sludge is more to your
liking, then treasure the Iommi-like finger-flexer “The New Judas”. And that’s
not all , folks. Mollestad knows her Japanese speed metal improvisers like
Keiji Haino, Michio Kurihara, and Kawabata Makoto and extracts much inspiration
from their reckless abandon and avant garde meanderings.

The key to instrumental, guitar-based
albums is the variety. No one wants to listen to the monotony of the same
chords pounded into their head over and over again. Thankfully, Mollestad has a
number of tricks up her sleeve, such as “Achilles”, which trades on blues licks
that’ll impress Page fans and “Indian River”, which gives her rhythm section a
chance to shine in the spotlight with tasteful soloing that doesn’t wear out
its welcome or have you reaching for the Skip button. And fans of Nick Saloman
will relish the gentle floating psychedelia of ”Shawshank” or “Ghrá Rúnda”,
that would not be out of place alongside his early “bedroom” recordings like
“The Shrine” or “Song For The Sky”. Overall, a very impressive follow-up to her
2011 debut (Shoot, also on Rune Grammofon). This “Heddy Witches’ brew”
(apologies for the multi-level pun!) is highly recommended to fans of metallic
energy, free-jazz skronking and psychedelic navel gazing.

Pound for pound Poland has been pumping out
some of the best kraut and space rock the last couple of years. Emerging from the growing scene come
critically acclaimed fan lauded favorites, Echoes of Eon. After winning the eye of the public Echoes of
Eon spent nearly two years honing their skills with live performances and
festival after festival until the time came to record their debut album Immensity. By this point they are a well-oiled machine, a
prog-rock space monster. Bleeding but
not tied to an obvious Hawkwind influence Echoes of Eon are proving to be a
unique musical voice among the growingly chocked Polish scene. With so many great bands out there it’s hard
to keep people’s attention but that doesn’t seem to be a problem with Echoes of
Eon, they certainly interested me enough to talk with them about the history of
the band, recording the new album Immensity
and what the future has in store for them.

What is the band's lineup?

Grzesiek:
Echoes of Eon are Mateusz Narkiewicz on guitar, Rafał Korecki on bass,
Paweł Głębocki on drums and myself Grzesiek Wieliczko playing guitar.

Are any of you in other bands at this point? Have you been in any other bands that
recorded or released anything?

Grzesiek:
Each one of us has gained experience from other bands. Many years ago I recorded an album with an
industrial black-metal band Nepauz Had.
After that I created The Rack Tripp which was entirely my project. Nowadays besides Echoes of Eon I have a solo
project Become the Ocean. It’s in the
very early stages of development though, and because of my lack of time I’ve
had to put it on hold for the moment.

Rafał:
Before Echoes of Eon we were playing with Mateusz and Pawel in a project
called Circle's Closing but it kind of died a natural death. A few years back Mateusz and Pawel also
played in a band called Good City, Mateusz recorded two albums with them but
Pawel’s only on the last one.

Where is the band currently located?
Are you very involved with the music scene there?

Grzesiek:
The matter of location is rather complicated in our case. Three quarters of the band come from Dobre
Miasto which is where our rehearsals take place. I lived in Olsztyn before, about 20 km from
there so there was no problem, but now I live in Gizycko which is 120 km away. Because of that we only rehearse when we’re
preparing for a concert.

Rafał:
We played our first concerts here in Olsztyn and Dobre Miasto we are
very involved with the music scene but we’re very open-minded and eagerly
cooperate with bands from all over Poland.

How would you describe the scene there?

Grzesiek:
In Olsztyn itself the music scene isn’t very big. We had a little problem finding bands that
play similar music in the beginning. We
played concerts with strictly metal or even pop-rock bands, but after few gigs
we got to know other bands that were on the same wavelength like MOAFT from
Morag. We were, and still are, very
eager to play with them. The music scene
itself in my opinion is a little bit narrow and consists mostly of metal
bands. I recommend you check out Cerber
and Messa, and of course MOAFT!

Rafał:
In Dobre Miasto we only really have three very resilient bands: Hyperial, Kohorta and ourselves. It's a small town and we don't have many
musical events going on.

How did you all meet? How long
has Echoes of Eon been around? What led
you to form the band?

Grzesiek:
We met two years ago. The band was originally just me and a drummer,
Krzysiek. We were looking for musicians
who would fit in our post-rock form and after a few personel changes, Rafał and
Mateusz joined the band. Finally due to
the band’s evolution we also changed drummers, Krzysiek was replaced by Pawel
who fits in perfectly and is a very solid foundation at the moment.

Rafał:
The band's form is a post-rock and post-metal hybrid but we don't assume
that we are going to do that all the time, it’s just in all of us and comes out
during composition.

Grzesiek:
The name refers to the music and space that we are trying to create with
it. I don’t think anyone knows the real
meaning at this point, we’ve had a few theories in the past but no one
remembers them at this point haha!

Does Echoes of Eon have any music other than the upcoming album
Immensity available?

Grzesiek: No, not at the moment.

In March you performed at least part of the new album live for Radio
Olsztyn, how did that go? Did you just
debut some new songs or did you perform the album in its entirety? Was it nerve wracking playing new material
live for broadcast?

Grzesiek:
At the Radio Olsztyn show we played Immensity almost in its
entirety. We probably would have played
the whole album but it didn't fit within the time limit. Personally I was a bit stressed with the
monitors (foldback) in my earphones, having an additional cable on me I
couldn't move while playing and what's more we normally play very loudly. Having an earphone monitor (foldback) I
didn't really feel what I was playing. It was however, a very interesting experience
and I think it went really well.

Can you describe your song writing process? Is it a lot of jamming or does someone come
in with a more finished idea and flesh it out with the rest of you?

Grzesiek:
We come up with 90% of the material while jamming. Usually someone starts to play and the rest
of us just join in. We’re trying to
memorize and link the most interesting sections for the most part. The exception is Ganimedes that I composed on
my own. While playing it at rehearsals
everyone added something though, their own parts and ideas, and thanks to that
the song fits in perfectly with the rest of the material.

Rafał:
I would mention two songs as great examples, Delusion I and Delusion II
which we actually composed with Grzesiek in a hotel room while recording
Immensity.

Immensity comes out April 30th.
Who is putting it out? Where can
our readers get a copy?

Grzesiek:
We put Immensity out on our own and we are selling and distributing the
album ourselves. You can buy our album at the online store:
http://echoesofeon.8merch.com/

What does the album title Immensity refer to?

Rafał:
Immensity was actually my idea, I wanted to underline or even direct the
listener to our vision of Echoes of Eon’s music. I only had one word in mind,
immensity. I think it perfectly describes our musical journeys into vast spaces
and the infinite.

Can you talk about the recording of Immensity? Who recorded it? Where was it recorded at? What kind of equipment was used?

Grzesiek:
Immensity was recorded at the Sounds Great Promotion studio in
Gdynia. Our producer was Jan Galbas,
mixing and mastering was done by Kuba Mankowski and Jan Galbas. We established that we wanted the album to
sound like we were playing live so we played on the same equipment that we use
during concerts.

Do you enjoy recording? It seems
like bands either love it or they hate it.

Grzesiek:
It was the first time in professional recording studio for all of us so
we didn't really know what to expect.
Fortunately our producer Dziablas approached us with a lot of patience
and we managed to record the album comfortably in six days. Actually we enjoyed it so much that we’ve
already started to think about the next time, what kind of mistakes we made and
can avoid next time around.

Rafał:
Although it was our first time the session was very good. The mood was great. We didn’t really have any problems during
production and ended up with even more interesting ideas than we had prepared
before entering the studio.

Other than the release of Immensity on April 30th do you have any other
plans or goals for the year you'd like to accomplish?

Grzesiek:
Our main goal is to promote the album and play concerts. We’re not
really thinking about anything else at the moment.

What plans do you have as far as touring goes this year?

Grzesiek:
Upcoming shows include Bring The Astronauts Fest and the Dobremiastock
Festival, both in Dobre Miasto. We’re
also supporting Long Distance Calling in Poznan at the Post Rock Festival. We usually learn about upcoming shows as they
happen as opposed to doing a lot of planning, we will probably organize a small
tour promoting the album shortly though.

It sounds like you have a pretty varied source of music you draw from;
can you talk about some of your major influences?

Grzesiek:
Well I probably won't surprise you by saying that everyone of us listens
to a different type of music. Of course
we all have some bands and types of music we enjoy in common with each other as
well though. I have a few bands that I'm
always listening to and always will be.
Those are King Crimson, Tool, Neurosis, Meshuggah, The Mars Volta,
Russian Circles and The Ocean. Other
bands and inspirations change all the time, if I were to answer this question
next week the answers would be different but at the moment some of them are
Cult of Luna, Puscifer, Red Fang, Karnivool, Bon Iver, Muse, Nine Inch Nails,
Mastodon, Rosetta I Ufomammut. Polish
bands also worth mentioning include Blindead, Obscure Sphinx, Nao, Ampacity and
my latest discovery, Hetane.

Rafał:
We share a lot of those influences in common like Tool, Meshuggah, The
Mars Volta, Russian Circles, The Ocean.
For my part I would mention Tesseract, Gojira , Isis, Opeth, Porcupine
Tree and Cloudkicker, which is actually a solo procject of mine but also very
inspiring.

It's a double-edged sword in and of itself, but digital music has
exposed me to an entirely new cosmos of musical exploration. How do you feel about digital music and
distribution?

Grzesiek:
I think it's a good phenomenon.
The whole music industry should switch their model to publicizing music
mainly in the digital format. CD's and
vinyl should be the privilege of music lovers.
It’s a result of the times we're living in. We consume so many products, including music,
that it’s so much easier to download a mp3 and play it with one click on a
computer than it is to look for a CD, remove it from the package and put it
into a CD player. In my opinion good
music defends itself; people who collect albums will always collect them, the
thing is to get to people who don't buy CDs or vinyl for different reasons, who
are comfortable with downloading mp3s from the internet interested and
involved. Delivering them music in a
digital format for less money seems like a good solution, in fact we’re
planning on offering an online digital version of Immensity soon.

On May 4, 2013, the Tao was everywhere,
including the venue Mill City Nights, a former church in downtown Minneapolis.
The just enough to recognize as, hinting at, psychedelic doom metal band Ides
of Gemini performing like it’s Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.

These words may ruin an experience, may
contradict it, not the best if actually in a conversation with someone, but the
reader shall create the reality, not the author. Only one translation.

The “prisoners” chained in the “cave” –
hearing the echoes. The crowd was not as beardy as a hotspot like Portland,
OR., and without a proper metal tribute to Jeff Hanneman two days after his
death - only one person seen wearing a Slayer shirt, with just the logo, and it
looked like that fake, distressed vintage type.

With the curtains open, visually, an
anti-distortion, the band color coordinated in minimalism, not unlike a White
Stripes’ style of black and red. But guitarist J. Bennett’s wearing of a
necktie, pure psychedelia in its concept. Vocalist Sera Timms’ bangs vs. her
blazing red bass of ironic intensity. And the sometimes mallet use of Kelly
Johnston, a metal Moe Tucker, but with a traditionally arranged drum kit. All
seemed so far apart, assuming, they know each other’s tarot readings.

Less is more heavy psych, which makes it
easy to pick apart, technically, and not the point. An esoteric drone vocal
being the point, framed by the other two participants in the ritual, the third
was the audience being watched. This is not a revolution in sound combinations,
maybe it is, because all doom is retro thanks to Cathedral, wait, I mean Black
Sabbath. It’s classy (which could mean the opposite of what it should mean),
literary, atmospheric, primal womb metal. The guitar maintains the heartbeat,
only seconds here and there of quickness. The drums a modern chariot.

Then again, “Silence is a source of great
strength.” – Lao Tzu

(Before the first day, god created silence,
and that trembling feeling), as my experience was, “in the cave,” within the
beginning riffs, eventually fleeing the cave into the forest with an Artaudian
confusion. The lyrics are available in the forest, available for everyone that
is open and receptive to the experiment. Ideas, not the present material
things, are the most important of the realities, like what shadows represent
for the prisoners.

Escaping the cave, not just being able to
leave - the journey leading to acclimation and nowhere in the end, but the
path, the meaning. Is the freed one not considered anymore by the prisoners? -
Like the best thing about the internet being the fastest way to the truth. The
clever one is the chained one that can guess what shadow they will see next.
Others say the want of knowledge, the seeking of experiences, the escaping of
the cave, and running through the forest is the right way, the feeling I got as
the band played. But the releasing of the prisoners, only a dream?

Innerspeaker is the award-winning debut
album from Tame Impala, the nom de group of Perth multi-instrumentalist, Kevin
Parker. It’s a gorgeous collection of sunny day reflective songs, with swashes
of swirling guitars, psychedelic effects, and dreamy vocals. Opener “It Is Not
Be” is Revolveresque pop at its best, but then Parker breaks out the fuzz
distortion pedals for the garagey “Desire Be Desire Go”. It’s like leapfrogging
from Olivia Tremor Control to Flaming Lips, but before our brains have time to regain
our musical perspective, “Alter Ego” strolls through the room with a dose of
sunshiny, West Coast pop with hints of
the perky power pop of fellow Aussie solo artist Donny McDonald.

Parker’s
faraway vocals form the heartbreaking plea at the core of the melancholic “Why
Don’t You Make Up Your Mind”, but spirits are lifted on the ensuing,
Barrett-influenced “Solitude Is Bliss” and the glistening guitar opening to
“Jeremy’s Storm” belies the brewing chaos within (complete with swelling wind
effects and manic drumming) that eventually explodes into a current of guitar
shredding that is equal parts prog, Hawkwind, and post rock guitarscapes, a la
Tortoise.

One of Innerspeaker’s many charms is the
variety of approaches Parker successfully pulls off, none more jarring than the
stalking, bluesy swagger of the near-metallic “The Bold Arrow Of Time”, which
sounds like Cream on steroids. It’s a little half baked and almost seems like
it hasn’t progressed past demo form (everything stops for a moment while Parker
counts his way back into the main riff and then he switches the whole mood with
an atmospheric coda that prepares the listener for the ensuing, “Runway,
Houses, City, Clouds”. As it’s multi-part title suggests, this suite runs the
gamut of emotions and musical styles, from the quietly ascending opening salvo
that lifts the listener heavenward to the meandering, Tangerine Dream-inspired,
synth-driven central part representing our floating journey around the island
to view the tiny “houses and cities” below, and culminating in the Floydian
finale, as we tickle the “clouds”.

Parker’s
been making music in one for or another for more than half his 26 years and
brings all his influences (from Rage Against the Machine and Cream to The
Beatles and Brainticket) to bear on this inspiring debut, which deservedly won
Album of The Year honors at the Rolling Stone Australia awards in 2011.

Once upon a time, when a warm enchanting
sun rose and set around just me, a bit of musical wanderlust floated in from
California ... it was called Garage Psych.
The songs were filled with cascading distant harmonics, stories of emotional
walls, dreamy romanticism, cutting cynicism, fuzzy guitars, a solitary
loneliness, and above all, it sounded honest; as if the bands were singing
directly to me. If I were pressed to
define Garage Psych, I would have to say that it captures that easily missed
breath, when youth is both a moment in time and a memory. That’s why so few garage psych bands last
long, and why so few garage psych bands ever release more than a couple of
defining records. After all, they’re too
young to know the ways of the world, too young to even know themselves, and too
young and inexperienced to understand the musical inner-workings of a music
studio. Garage Psych is not a learning
process, it’s almost a one shot deal, so finding bands who can capture and
define that internal moment in time, yet alone set it to a seductive groovy
infectious sound, is always a delight.

Garage Psych has never gone away or out of
style, it’s just become more rare and highly prized, and to that end the
Allah-Las have encapsulated and distilled all of what makes garage psych so
good. There’s nothing visionary about
this twelve track release, it will forever live perfectly in the moment ... a
warm balanced stylized dizzying sunset smile for those like me, and an
emotional breakthrough of profound enlightenment for anyone under the age of
twenty. The vintage sounding music and
lyrics combine effortlessly, there’s a delightful stoner quality to each of the
songs that are rendered from the heart, and filled with an alienated
vulnerability that’s almost apocalyptic in nature.

The release sounds very off-the-cuff and
easy going, but as always, the things that appear most laid-back are often the
most complicated to capture, with the band diving headlong into an analog
recording process that hung-on for a bit, and all but vanished somewhere in the
late 1950’s with with rise of dynamic stereo.
You don’t just hear this album, you feel it, it’s warm, it's layered
with magical musical and vocal harmonies, it’s private and restrained, yet
open-ended enough to cause you to stand preoccupied within your own thoughts,
staring off into space.

Samsara Blues Experiment has been
performing for the better half of the last decade and they have the back
catalog to prove it. Prolific and
memorable, Samsara Blues Experiement has been quickly earning their place among
the resurging international psychedelic revival. Riding that wave long and high Samsara Blues
Experiment is one of the few bands out there with fifteen and twenty-minute
songs that has a discernable song structure to their music, relying more on
their songwriting abilities than improvised chaos and screaming feedback. High flying solos and a rhythm section of
berrating drum and bass have combined to form a unique fixture of the
psychedelic stoner and space rock scene.
The release of their newest album, Live At Rockpalast was teamed with an
announcement that they were working on a new studio project due for release
later this year! It’s hard to keep up
with Samsara Blues Experiment sometimes so I took sometime and talked with lead
guitarist and vocalist Christian Peters about the bands past, the new live
album, the upcoming studio album, what the future has in store for them and
what it’s like working a day job after 2AM festival appearances!

What is the band’s lineup? Is
this your original lineup?

For five years now the band has been built on Thomas Vedder’s drumming,
Richard Behren’s bumping Bass, Hans Eiselt’s Rhythm Guitar and my own vocals
and lead guitar, plus I play the occasional Sitar or Synthesizers on our
records. I’d say the four of us are the
classic Samsara Blues Experiement lineup.
I played with several other guys before now but most of them disappeared
or left for various reasons. Most
noteworthy would be my former Terraplane bandmates who all played a significant
role in Samsara Blues Experiment’s very early beginnings; Andreas Herbst,
Florian Furtner and Robin Niehoff, a very young but seriously talented
musician.

Are any of you in other active bands?
Have you released anything with other bands?

Richard is also in a band called Heat whose first album Old Sparky was
released on my label Electric Magic Records.
Hans is in a band Rodeo Drive, but they haven’t released anything yet;
although they do have some pretty cool songs.
Thomas and I, while we might do some jamming with friends from time to
time, are in Samsara Blues Experiement exclusively. Nothing else very serious these days. I, of course had several other projects and
bands before, Terraplane and my former soloproject Soulitude which I think are
interesting if nothing else. I’m going to release some of that stuff in
the future on my label Electric Magic Records.

Where is the band located?

In Berlin-Weissensee. Only Hans
was born in Berlin, the rest of us is are originally from other areas.

What is the local scene like there?
Are you very involved with it?

There’s some interesting bands, of course most of them are pretty much
unknown because they hardly play and almost never play out of Berlin. I lately discovered a band called Suns Of
Thyme whose first album will also be released on my label Electric Magic
Records. Obviously there´s a huge
variety of groups in Germanies biggest city but I don´t go to concerts that
often and actually I‘ve become rather lazy when it comes to discovering young
groups while there´s so much good stuff from the past and those bands whole
vibe is often much more appealing to me anyways. These days it seems that too many young
groups try to relive “the glorious 70’s“ and shit, which often doesn´t work for
me and makes them boring to me because they lack individuality if you know what
I mean?

How and when did you all meet?

I met Thomas through a common buddy, while Richard and I met in the
German forum of Stonerrock.com back in the day.
Hans is a long-time buddy of Richard.
We all came together first time in October 2008.

What led to the formation of the Samsara Blues Experiment?

A wish to express myself, lyrically and as a musician but the end of my
former band Terraplane in 2007 also led to the formation of Samsara Blues
Experiment.

Can you talk a little bit about the meaning behind the name Samsara
Blues Experiment?

The term Samsara is derived from "to flow together," to go or
pass through states, to wander. Mostly a great revolving door between life and
death and a new life reincarnated cycle of life. The Blues was always an import part of my
life as a musician and music listener and is regarded as the basis for any kind
of Rock music. Experiment could stand
for the long-term aim for some kind of "fulfillment" and more than
that the will to constantly improve and work on things without asking or
thinking about it too much. Most of what
I do in my life as a musician is from intuition you know? I don´t write down any tabs or notes or shit. I don´t care about the rhythm when it feels
right.

Tell us a little about Electric Magic Records? When was the label started? How did it get started who started it?

I started with the re-release of Samsara Blues Experiment’s USA Demo in
January 2012. I started Electric Magic
Records because I always wanted to have my own label and I had the contacts,
the money and the will to work it out a this point.

Are you planning on releasing Samsara Blues Experiment material in the
future exclusively through Electric Magic?

Probably yes. I gave some thought
to searching for a bigger label, something that would reach more people than we
ever could, but I‘m not so sure if I’d really want to do that because I enjoy
the freedom, which we probably wouldn’t have any other way. I like being free to do what we want to do,
when we want to do it. Thankfully people
have given our band a massive amount of support over the last few years which
brought us to this point and position.
We wouldn’t be here without the thousands of fans who buy our albums so
thank you all very much! I hope I can
give something back with the label by releasing some, in my opinion, good stuff
for reasonable prices. I think it’s my
destiny to do this and I’m highly looking forward to more enjoyable records in
the future, music that means something to me and hopefully to others as well.

While a great majority of artists have made the push to extremely
limited edition releases as Samsara Blues Experiment you have made a pretty big
point of trying to keep your back catalog in print and readily available
worldwide. Can you talk a little bit
about why you have avoided limited edition releases? What’s your opinion on limited music?

Good question! To me it sucks big
time when a similarly big and widely well respected band, Colour Haze for
instance won’t release their back catalogue.
Some of their greatest records remain undiscovered and unheard. I’d love to have a LP of Ewige Blumenkraft,
I’ve even bothered Stefan Koglek about re-release it. He has the power but he doesn’t think it´s
worth the effort. I don’t undertand this
kind of thinking. They’d sell 500 copies
in less than a week for sure. As much as
I can I will always make sure our albums are in print as long as our band
exists. On the other hand there’s a
massive load of albums especially in the psychedelic scene that I’d never
release and it’s okay when they remain fan issues of 500 copies. I don´t mean to be brag but only very few are
real classics, like Nebula’s To The Center, Gas Giant’s Mana, Colour Haze’s
self-titled album as well as Kyuss and Fu Manchu rather obviously. I mean not every band even sells 500 copies
you know? I’m happy we got along very well
with World In Sound, not every label can also afford to always have their own
back catalogue in print all the time. In
the end it very much depends on the demand.
When you’re in a band that sells, why not sell as much as
possible!?! There’s still a lot of
people that buy records and are happy when they return home with a new LP
instead of a Mp3 they got after hours of research on the interwebs.

Where is the best place for our readers to get music and merchandise
from Samsara Blues Experiment?

From us directly I’d say, because still we handle our own sales. Which is cool but most people don’t know
anything about what happens when the band leaves the stage. We all still have jobs. I’d say this is obvious, but a lot of people
look at us with eyes like an Owl when we tell them that we have to work the
next morning. We’re all really quite
"regular" people.

You are going in to the studio to record your new album Waiting For The
Flood the end of this month (May 2013).
What can listeners expect from the new album? Are you going to attempt anything radically
different with this album?

We feel like this album could be the perfect mixture of our last two
albums. A combination of psychedelic
mellow moods and unknown, sometimes almost brutal heaviness. Of course everything will be groovy as
ever. We’re all looking forward to the
finished album. It will take some time I
guess, but I think this could become a real masterpiece. Four songs in about fifty minutes. The album is supposed to come out in
November, which means no vacation in Summer, we’ll be working very hard on
this!

Where is it going to be recorded and who’s going to be recording it?

We’ll do it all by ourselves again.
Richard is a professional sound-technician. He also owns his own professional studio with
all the equipment one could ever need.
Just look up Big Snuff Studio Berlin, it’s the place to be when you play
real music. We’ll probably have some
recording assistance by either Richards brother Luke or our long-time buddy
Daniel who are both co-owners of the Big Snuff.

What is the songwriting process like with Samsara Blues Experiment? Is there just a lot of jamming or does
someone come in with an idea to share with the rest of the band?

It’s a mystery to me. We try to
jam from time to time, but mostly end up tootling in D all the time. Then there’s moments of divinity, some higher
form’s input, when someone’s hands receive information that he can’t understand
but has to instantly transform into a riff that might crush everybodies
heads. Hence a songs is born. Haha, whatever, I really have no idea how to
explain it properly, it’s mostly based on intuition.

You just released your first live album, Live At The Rockpalast, in
April of this year. How did you go about
recording that show? Was it just a
soundboard tap or did you mic everything?

They miced everything and everybody on that stage. Since the "glorious 70’s"
Rockpalast has become quite an institution on German television, their artists
have become almost mainstream. It’s a
bit odd these days, but they started with a Rory Gallagher and Robin Trower
played the very same stage as we did. So
we were happy that they allowed us to wreck the room. It was a good experience. I wish they had been more cooperative with
the album release, but it is what it is, so it has to remain a 500 CD release
which is cool enough anyway. For the
fans you know, all for the fans...

Was the Live At The Rockpalast album easier to record than your studio
output knowing you only had to play it once or did that add some lever of
pressure and difficulty?

Not much pressure. Noooo. You have to understand that this is a show on
German TV. There were three or four huge
cameras following my every move. It was
not planned to become a live recording.
It just happend to be the best recording we have of a show to this day,
so we thought it was cool to release a Live at Rockpalast just like Trower's
and all the other guys, even if I guess we’re still very much the underdogs,
which is even cooler. An underground
band releasing a Rockpalast album. Just
great!

When you play live is there a lot of improvisation or is it all
meticulously planned out?

We have real songs. All of
them. These songs have structures and
sometimes a shorter or longer section of improvisation. I never play a solo the same way, but don’t
mistake all of it as improvisation. The
others members in our band don’t improvise a lot. It would end up in chaos. We’re not Amon Düül.

Where’s the best place for fans to keep up with the latest news like
album releases and live performances?

Facebook I guess, though I am also ashamed to say, but I am too lazy to
put everything on our website. What
would we do without the internet?

What do you have planned as far as touring goes for 2013 so far?

We are planning a three weeks tour through Europe for the release of the
next album. We’d also like to follow our
fans calls to play on other continents but it’s not that easy, not any
more. There’s so many things to keep us
from playing, like jobs, family, lack of contacts and money, money, money...

Do you have a funny or interesting story from a live show that you’d
like to share with our readers?

No, we’re very serious musicians, wink, wink.

Who are some of your favorite acts you’ve played with?

With Samsara Blues Experiment?
I’d say Pater Nembrot, The Machine and This Is Ghost Country because all
of these guys became true buddies over the years we’ve been touring and getting
to know each other. Then we’ve met
several big and small names in the scene.
Those were good experiences but nothing more. I’d never brag about meeting this or that
"famous" person. I guess I got
old and realized that everyone‘s just a normal person when you get to know
them. Where are the true idols? Not in the music scene, that’s for sure...

Speaking of favorite acts can you tell us who some of your personal
influences are? What about the band as a
whole?

Each of us has very different favorites.
We could all agree on Kyuss and some "glorious 70s" bands
though. My favorite at the moment is
Rory Gallagher, a rare and exceptional person.
Other influences are pretty obvious I guess. You know, all the big names...

You have been releasing rare and live material on a weekly basis via
links on your Facebook page for some time now.
Where did the idea to post free downloads of rare and live material for
a limited time come from?

The gods told me to share and make some peoples happy.

What’s your opinion on digital music and the way the rapidly changing
affects it’s having on the music industry?

The world needs digital music, but then again it doesn’t need it at all. It just depends on you, do you want to spend
your life in front of a computer searching the endless plains of the world wide
web for more and more music or leave that crap and plant a tree, return home
happily and listen to that old Neil Young record.

I
love having a digital copy of the album to listen to wherever I want, but
there’s something magical about a physical album. A special something about holding a record in
your hands, creating a world with the music you are hearing that can never be achieved
via a disposable digital copy. Do you
have any such connection with physical releases?

I like looking at things, touching things, especially when there’s a
beautiful woman on the cover!

Is there anyone from your local scene or area that our readers should be
listening to that they might not have heard of?

Suns Of Thyme if you’re open minded.
I happen to really dig that band.

What about nationally and internationally?

Imaad Wasif. He’s got a rare gift.

Is there anything that I missed or you’d just like to talk about?

For now that’s really okay.
Thanks. Thank you for having
Samsara Blues Experiment in your magazine!

From an informative point of view, Tame
Impala are Kevin Parker, Dominic Simper, Jay Watson, Nick Allbrook and the most
recent addition, Julien Barbagello. Loosely formed in 2007, their first EP was
released in 2008, followed by the debut album Innerspeaker in 2010 and the
follow up, Lonerism (2012) …

Oh boy. Who are we kidding. You know all of
this. You also know that whether you’re listening to an album, or watching a
live show, Tame Impala is an experience that is completely mindblowing, filled
with simplistic beauty and boundless creativity.

The Tame Impala sound is one equally
informed by The Beatles as it is beat poetry, by Turkish prog as it is by
Turkish Delight, and by English folk as much as homeless folk. Basically, it’s
all about the feeling.

It was the release of Innerspeaker (2010)
that made the globe stand up and take notice of the boys from Perth. It was
thanks in part to its irreverent, contemporary spin on assumedly dead and
forgotten sounds, as well as its unique, infinitely surprising way around a
melody. The album, recorded and produced entirely by Kevin at what is
essentially a treehouse with 180 degree views of the Indian Ocean, a few hours
South West of Perth. With Flaming Lips’ Dave Fridmann on mixing duties and
Death in Vegas’ Tim Holmes at the engineering wheel, the album achieved the
“absolutely explosive” sound that Parker was aiming to reach.

As each single rolled out from “Solitude is
Bliss” to “Lucidity” to “Why Won’t You Make Up Your Mind”, the world had gone
from standing up and taking notice to jumping up and down with arms flailing
madly. Tours were organized, festival offers came through thick and fast, Jimmy
Fallon called, and the world got to see, instead of just hear, what it was all
about.

After the Innerspeaker whirlwind, the boys
came up for air for a bit. Not long after this, Kevin went into the creative
wormhole and started getting the ideas for album number two from his brain and
onto his trusty home recording set up. Thankfully a portable set up, the album
was recorded around the globe, most prominently in Perth and Paris. Again,
mixed by Dave Fridmann, the end result was Lonerism, gifted to the incredibly
eager world in October 2012.

In Kevin’s own words, Lonerism incorporates
“an expanded sonic palette, more emotional song writing, and a more pronounced
narrative perspective." The songwriting is as joyously screwy as ever.
Songs swerve when you expect them to duck, and turn themselves instead out when
you expect them to straighten out, there’s so many melodic curveballs, it’s
marvellously dizzying. It’s lyrically sweet and casual, it’s relaxed but deadly
serious at times, and best of all, deeply amorous.

“Be Above It” applies a cleansing pressure
hose to the brain, and “Endors Toi” plunges you into a deep sleep of ripping
guitar riff dreams. “Music To Walk Home By” is as it says on the tin,
announcing its arrival at the front gate with the kind of ceremonious,
shredding guitar riff that makes home seem like a good place to be. “Keep On
Lying” intentionally drifts in and out as if in the middle of a wandering jam
at the end of the earth, “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards” is as close as Tame
Impala will ever come to a top down cruising anthem, albeit one from a cracked
reality and soaked in a deep, solo melancholy. “Elephant” doesn’t hide it’s
rollicking, outerspace glam strut, while “Nothing That Has Happened So Far Has
Been Anything We Could Control” arguably boils the essence of the album into a
dense, ecstatic brew of utopian proportions.

So excited was the globe for Lonerism that
the outcome was a phenomenal sold out world tour at the end of 2012. If we pull
out the calculator – that’s 29 cities, 33 dates and over 45,000 punters soaking
up the mindblowing bliss that is a Tame Impala show. And that’s not including
festivals!

So in demand are these dudes, that yet
another world tour is kicking off in February, with the majority of the huge
string of dates already sold out.

Lonerism has received worldwide praise and
endorsements from fellow artists and celebs, and has garnered all star ratings
from industry and tastemakers, including perhaps the most heartmelting accolade
of them all, the adorable kids of PS22 covering “Feels Like We Only Go
Backwards”.

Please keep your arms and legs inside the
ride at all times. Clearly, we’ll be continuing on this wild journey for some
time.

My Bloody Valentine (MBV) are one of the
most influential and unique acts in alternative music history. They were formed
in 1983 in Dublin, Ireland, by musical visionary Kevin Shields (guitar and
vocals) and Colm O Ciosoig (drums). The band’s line-up has consisted since
1987, after moving to London, of founding members, with singer-guitarist
Bilinda Butcher and bassist Debbie Googe. As MBV’s music evolved, their radical
approach to the guitar, use of distortion, pitch bending, and digital reverb
resulted in a sound that came to be known as “shoegazing”.

My Bloody Valentine put out two albums and
a string of EPs from 1985 to 1991 that effectively changed the conception of
what rock music can sound like, introducing a groundbreaking concoction of
discordant effects and fragile melodies.

Band released the era-defining debut LP
“Isn't Anything” in 1988. The group's magnum opus, second album “Loveless”
(1991), received extensive critical acclaim. It has reached mythical status and
remains iconic. The NME review of “Loveless” declared, "...however decadent
one might find the idea of elevating other human beings to deities, My Bloody
Valentine, failings and all, deserve more than your respect".

The band was known as a formidable live
act. On stage, MBV played deafeningly loud, creating “wall of noise” but it's
members were passive, inspiring the phrase “shoegazers” to describe the band's
(and their followers') introspective demeanor. Soon there were legions of other
shoegazers.

Following “Loveless”, MBV became inactive,
with Shields rumoured to have recorded - and shelved - several albums' worth of
songs.

In 2007, Shields announced that the band
had reunited and were working on new material. MBV subsequently toured
successfully across Europe and USA in 2008 and 2009 - they played the European
festival circuit as well as major cities in North America, including the All
Tomorrow's Parties festival, New York.

After 22 years MBV released their third
album, titled “m b v” in February 2013. One of the most anticipated albums, “m
b v”, was greeted with excellent reviews and heralded as a masterpiece, a
perfect follow up to “Loveless”. When MBV also announced their 2013 live dates
– MBV will play some of the most important world’s festivals and solo shows -
it is certain MBV, iconic alter rock act is back and it’s return is heroic! The
world tour already began with sold out shows in GB. Reviews of past concerts
are enthusiastic, describing the MBV performance as an outstanding experience.
A must for all MBV loyal fans!

Bristol-based Stolen Body have just
released a limited edition (250 copies), red-vinyl version of this Michigan septet’s sophomore effort as
part of Record Store Day. “Shapes On The Wall” stalks into the room on the back
of a haunting bassline that explodes into ferocious, Sabbathian riffs,
monotonic vocals unintelligibly and probably intentionally buried in the mix,
and a frightened-as-fuck atmosphere that suggests listening alone in the dark
could be detrimental to your psychological well being. Dusty’s crystalline
guitar lines throughout the album recall Robert Smith’s, creepy-crawly
pyrotechnics on the Cure’s early suicide trilogy (Faith, Seventeen Seconds,
Pornography) and Lou Reed’s serpentining ostrich guitar squawk on seminal
tracks like “All Tomorrow’s Parties”, but there’s also an enormous My Bloody
Valentine wall-of-guitar vacuum that sounds like you’re standing in the middle
of a runway with a supersonic transport about to take off. Then there’s that
heavy, Doorsy chest pounder, “Diamond Sleep” which sounds like Mr Mojo Risin’
just bellied up to the Roadhouse Blues Saloon and ordered a few rounds of devil
spit…in a dirty glass.

The
band’s sound is hard to pin down after your initial listening session, because
just when you think you’ve got another retread of Sleep’s Jerusalem/Dopesmoker
on your hands (e.g., tracks like “Midnight’s Child”), along comes the Brian
Jonestown Massacre bluesy, slide-guitar swagger of “You Shouldn’t Ask”, the
hypnotic mindfuck of “Mirror” and “I Don’t Mind”, and the headswirling haze of
“Indian Road” and you’re glad for the variety of influences (Spacemen 3, The
Warlocks, Loop, Velvets) and executions. Simply mesmerizing!

You are originally from the East Coast,
is it true that you were born in the Bronx?

This is true! I’m from New York.

How was it like when you grew up?

When I lived in the Bronx, well… growing up
there was kind of interesting. It is New York and it is one of the most
interesting places on the planet. There’s so much to do and see and I was an
avid sports fan so I could go to see The NY Yankees play. I played a lot of
sports myself. There were a lot of outlets for that and also for music. I used
to go downtown to Manhattan with friends and we go to Birdland and other Jazz
places and, you know, watch the really great musicians play. I think that
people who come from NY, if they take advantage of it, are around some of the
greatest situations in the world, best musicians and artists. Because people
from other places, other states, other countries go to NY to act and play, to
study music and study writing. So you have the advantage of people coming to
your city, bringing their talent with them and you don’t have to travel very
much. It’s a melting-pot. So, I think that was really cool. I mean, you’ve got
great stuff like museums, the Natural History, the NY Public Library on 2nd
Avenue.You’ve got the zoo, the best zoo in the world is in the Bronx… the Bronx
Zoo. You’ve got all kind of places that you can go and take advantage of for
educational purposes and just to broaden your views of the world.

I feel that was the greatest part about
growing up in NY… It had its disadvantages. In my neighbourhood it started to
get…. It started to get tough! There were a lot of gangs started to come up in
the late 50’s.That’s when it was starting to get downright dangerous. That was
the disadvantage of being a teenager in a dangerous neighbourhood, you really
had to watch yourself. But you know, it makes you street smart!

Do you come from a musical background or
are you the only artist in the family?

The only person in the family who had any
musical ability was my dad, he could sing really well. And he could play the
drums, same as me.

Well, actually my next question was about
your discovery of the drums, where it came from… What attracted you to that
particular instrument. So it came from your dad?

Yeah! I think if you have a talent, at
least me at a very early age, (I was maybe 7 or 8 years old), you just
naturally gravitate towards it. I watched drummers on television. My uncle was
a musicologist and a copyist for the army band at WestPoint. He bought me my
first snare drum and sticks and brushes when I was 9. He was also a kind of
saxophone player and even in our first little jam session in my house, my uncle
pulled out his saxophone and we started playing old swing stuff. He noticed and
said that I had an unusual gift for it. So even at an early age, it was just
totally natural for me to be able to play the drums. I couldn’t understand why
everybody couldn’t do it!

So, before you joined The Knickerbockers,
you were in a New York band called The Castle Kings. What sort of music did you
play?

One late afternoon, we were standing
outside in front of Atlantic Records. We just had a meeting with Dot Records,
they were in the same building as Atlantic. So we’re standing outside,
harmonizing, waiting for one of the guys’ dad to pick us up- this is a true
story- harmonizing to some goofy song that one of the guys in the band wrote
and Ahmet Ertegun, the president of Atlantic Records heard us and told us to
meet him the next day. So we did! He actually signed us to a contract and we
recorded 3 or 4 records. I was recording with some of the legends of the
business. People like Phil Alley, Phil Spector, Ahmet Ertegun and his brother
Nesuhi. These guys were legends and we were in the studio with them and I
didn’t know who they were! So I mean, at a very early age, we were doing things
with the heavyweights of the business and we didn’t even know it.

Apart from being an amazing drummer, you
also sing… They wrote somewhere that you are part of a somehow limited club of
singing drummers. Is it true you that you joined The Knickerbockers because of
that extra talent and why were they looking for a drummer who could sing?

They were looking for a drummer and the
first time I saw The Knickerbockers was in a neighbourhood venue. It was a
supermarket that had been emptied, sold-out and it was reopened to do a little
party on Memorial Day. I was walking down the street and I heard this music so
I went back and they were set up playing as a trio. Buddy, the saxophone player
was playing the drums, really well, and I thought, boy this is a band I’d love
to play with! A couple of weeks or months later, they called me up because
they’d heard I was a drummer and that I was looking for work. So I went and set
up in John and Beau’s house and we played, but my drumming skills were a little
bit on the amateur side because I was still young. Then they asked me to sing,
I sang some rock’n’roll stuff and John and Beau’s mum heard me sing and she
said “Hire that guy, he does sound good”! So my skills with drumming didn’t get
me the work, it was the singing. Then I improved as a drummer because you get
to play a lot. Also, Buddy taught me a lot of stuff on the drums that he got
from other good drummers. But it was actually my voice that got me the job.

Actually my next question was about your
first experience of the studio with The Knickerbockers. But it wasn’t in fact
your first because you just said you recorded with your previous band.
According to Beau, it was pretty intimidating to experience the studio for the
first time. How did you feel about that?

Actually, I was really thrilled. I thought
recording was really exciting, that was the next step to being a real musician.
The next step after that was, I don’t know, money and fame and the journey
through the studio was the way to get there. I thought it was a great
opportunity and I love listening to stuff that you played and then you listen
to it back. I love doing that, I still love it, it’s just no different.
Absolutely no different, I still love to record! Music as an art form is like a
painter, who paints a picture and can step back and look at it. But if you’re
playing live in a nightclub, you can’t step back and listen to what you did. So
I always thought that the neatest part of the music process was somebody
recording what you did. I love to be recorded live too… I feel that it’s a real
way to learn from your mistakes and learn from what you did well.

At the time, you met the producer Jerry
Fuller…

We met Jerry Fuller on the East Coast, up
in Albany NY. We were playing in a place called, believe it or not, The
University Twist Palace! He came through as an artist trying to…he was in
Buffalo NY, which is in the Western side of the state. So he did a little tour,
trying to sell himself as an artist and he was working his way down to
Manhattan. He was going to open an East Coast publishing company for 4 Stars
Music. So on the way there, he was playing with all these bands, singing and he
was already a writer of 4 hit records himself. He did “Travelling Man”… When he
ran into us, he really liked us a lot. I remember at one point, we were doing
some rock’n’roll stuff and then he said “You guys wouldn’t happen to know
“Misty”, the old Johnny Matis tune?”. And we just laughed, Buddy started
playing the intro and boom we were into it! He was just flabbergasted that a
rock’n’roll band could play “Misty” with such sophistication. Beau, the
guitarist is a master of chord progression. He was really well schooled in that
kind of genre. So Jerry was really impressed with the ability as a band to play
a song like “Misty” with such flair. That blew him away. So he called the West
Coast people at Challenge Records and he told them about us. We did some demo
stuff in New York studios. Challenge Records was not really that big of a
record company but, you know, we did that to, I don’t know, to show off our
abilities to the record company.

So you did find yourself playing the Red
Velvet Club in Hollywood quite regularly…

Jerry wanted us to move to the West Coast
so he got hold of the owner of the Red Velvet and he booked us there. It was a
kind of a neat venue because a lot of people from television and the music
industry would go there to hang out. It was like a local watering hole for the
celebrities! So we got the gig there and… you know, the rest is history. We got
a hit record a month later!

Is it there that you first met Bill Medley
and especially Bobby Hatfield of The Righteous Brothers with whom you
collaborated a few years later?

Yeah, they used to come in and listen to us
and we got them to sit in with us a bunch of times. We got friendly with them
and… You see, the thing is the show “Shindig” was being shot at ABC Studios
which was close to home for them. So they would do their “Shindig” show and
drive up Sunset Boulevard out West to where they lived in Beverly Hills. They
would drive by the Red Velvet and drop in. Everybody heard about this group
(The Knickerbockers) in the business and how good we were so we just drew a lot
of curiosity seekers to see what we were all about.

So after the release of “Lies”, the band
wanted “Just One Girl” as the second single but your record company Challenge
wanted “One Track Mind”. In retrospect, do you still think that was a mistake?
I find both songs very exciting and bursting with energy…

I think “Just One Girl” was a more exciting
record but it’s all conjecture to what would have been a hit. You never know,
but the song was written by one of the members of the band and “One Track Mind”
was written by Keith Colley and his wife Linda. The record was good and we
liked it. It was a good song and I thought we did a good job on the record, but
like I said, in this business you never know what’s gonna hit and what isn’t.
With the original copy of “Lies”, the record company had assigned it to be the
B side. If it wasn’t for B. Mitchell Reed, one of the big DJs in Los Angeles at
the time, who used to come in and see us at the Red Velvet… he asked our
promotional guy when he brought the record up to him and said “Where did you
guys record that ‘Lies’ song that they play in the club?”. He replied, “Yeah,
that’s the B side” and B. Mitchell Reed, without even hesitating went, “No, it
ain’t now!” and put it on the air. He didn’t even listen to it, he just put it
on the air, put the needle down and said “Here’s the brand new record by The
Knickerbockers!”

You also mentioned the lack of time in the
studio when you were recording, which must have been very frustrating.
Nevertheless, the band sounded very tight and that rhythm section between you
and John was really happening!

Well, we’ve been together for a while and
John and I always had a good groove together. We used to rehearse like crazy
before we went in the studio so we knew in front that we won’t get the time to
mess around in the studio. I’m kind of a proponent of that. I think that by
going in the studio and spending a lot of time on a track, you loose the
spontaneity and the electric energy that you can get in the first 5 or 6 takes.
After that, it can get kind of stale. You know, on top of that, I’d have liked
to have spent more time on overdubbing vocals and other instruments. But for
the track itself, I like to have it well rehearsed and just play it. Try to get
that energy right away.

But you were still trying things in the
studio. For example, on that alternate instrumental track of “Lies” released by
Sundazed, we can hear you talking and trying to get a certain drum beat.

Oh yeah! Sure. You can rehearse all you
want but when you hear what you rehearsed played back, then you have an
objective view point of it. You can stand back and listen to it and discuss
good and bad points. Maybe we should try to change this or that. On the first
couple of cuts of “Lies”, I was playing too much stuff on the drums and it was
pointed out to me by the producer/engineer Bruce Spotnick. Bruce said, “You
know, maybe you should cut down on some of those fills”. So I thought about it
and the guys in the band agreed so I just kept it simple. You know, stuff like
that would happen. I was so used to playing that song live that I was just
playing too much stuff. And we were just young and still learning what works
and what doesn’t.

The band apparently did all the Dick Clark
tours. Do you remember playing with The Yardbirds?

I don’t think we ever played with The
Yardbirds that I can remember…

Because they did one of those tours when
Jeff Beck was in the band. That’s when he had a nervous breakdown and quitted!

I don’t remember that! I didn’t meet The
Yardbirds or Jeff Beck. They’re one of the greatest bands of all time. I love
Jeff Beck. I played his material in different bands over the years and I always
found his material really interesting.

Oh he’s a genius, he’s very unique…

Yeah, I agree… That’s it! He is unique. He
stands totally different from most of the other guitar players. You can’t
really tell his roots sometimes. You think, “where did he get that from?”.

So on those tours, did you feel at times
like close to a nervous breakdown or did you actually had quite a bit of fun?

A lot of guys had nervous breakdowns on the
road. The road is a killer.You know, when I first met the Rolling Stones, they
looked totally beaten down! In the interview I read that Beverly Paterson did
with Beau, he said they came in and they looked dark and scary. They looked
like they were undertakers! He really couldn’t believe the way they looked and
acted. They didn’t say hello to anybody, they just looked spent.

Yeah, it’s true that touring is very
tiring…

It’s the hardest thing you’ll ever do in
your life. Doing one-nighters, travelling and putting out all that energy every
night. It’s very hard. I mean, look what happened to Clapton back in the 60’s.
He had to go in for rehab for a while because he was using drugs to get him up
and down. That’s where drugs came in. The guys would be using the upper drugs to
get up and then the downer drugs to go to sleep. First thing you know, you’re
addicted.

Jerry Fuller once commentated on the very
separate personalities in the band, something that makes the nucleus of a good
group. Judging from the pictures, you seem rather outgoing and from your
playing, very energetic. How would you describe Beau, John and Buddy back then?

Well, we were all pretty young and we all
had the same sort of East Coast sense of humour. Self-depreciating, poking fun
at one another a lot but knowing it was fun. I mean, we still make one another
laugh. The last time we were together in 1990, we were just cracking up all the
time!

It was that reunion, wasn’t it?

Yeah, and we still have that same look
about things. Jerry loved being around us because we were constantly just
cracking jokes about each other. Similar outlook on life! Yeah, we had a lot of
energy. I talk to Beau regularly, he’s still playing. He’s doing a little Jazz
solo thing locally.

You co-wrote “Come And Get It” with Beau Charles
and “Can You Help Me” with Jerry Fuller. Did you write the music or the lyrics?

The lyrics and the melody. That’s how I
write and then I go to someone who plays a cordial instrument and put chords to
the melody that I wrote. Then we discuss that until we come up with something
that we both like. I always write both the lyrics and the melody. I just walk
in, sing the song and then they’ll figure out what I’m trying to say with the
chords.You know, songs occur to me in the most mysterious ways. I find myself
singing and saying “Hey, that’s a song!”. It’s almost as if I’m not even
listening to what my mind is doing until I had stepped back and go “Wait a
minute, that’s a song!”.

So you were the last to join The Knicks and
the first to leave…

Unless you consider that Buddy kind of
disappeared… After we had “Lies” and after we had toured a lot, we were kind of
looking for another record company but we were stuck with Challenge. They would
not let us go, it was a mess. Buddy got into using substances and one night he
didn’t show up to work. We were playing a place out in the Valley called The
Rag Doll. We played the first set without him and I called his home. His wife
said “Oh yeah, he left about an hour” and we said “Hum… that’s weird!”. He never
showed up and I didn’t see Buddy again for years, until after I joined The
Righteous Brothers. He just skipped out of town and left everybody. So he was
the first one to leave… That was one of the reasons that I wanted to leave
because it just wasn’t the same without him. He was a pivotal player in the
band, he was a very powerful player and when he left I felt…You know when you
get used to 4 guys and you think like one mind, when part of it is gone you
kind of have a big gap in the energy and the process of making music. We really
missed him. We tried to get other guys. We tried drummers and then we tried a
keyboard player, he was a let down. So the band at that time was kind of
flandering.

So at the time, did you feel a bit bitter
and felt the band could have achieved even more or was it “pas de regrets” (no
regrets) and you were looking forward to the future?

Well, a little of both. I think that when
Buddy left we were kind of lost. Buddy was one of those kind of guys…On one
side of the coin, he was very brilliant and on the other side of the coin, he
was a high maintenance kind of guy you had to baby-sit because he had some
issues. It’s true of a lot of great players. When he left, we didn’t exactly
know what to do. So when Bobby Hatfield hit on me to do the Righteous
Brothers’thing, I then thought “Yeah, let’s go there” because the band was not
going into any direction. Also, you have to remember Beau had spoken to me in a
coffee shop in Seattle while we were on the road, about seriously considering leaving
the band. He wanted to just quit playing for a while. So he was not up and full
of energy like he was anymore, he wasn’t happy. He wanted to spend more time at
home with his family and he planted that seed in my head. So when I was
approached by Bobby Hatfield to join The Righteous Brothers, I had nobody at
all so it was time to make a change.

You recorded the album “Rebirth” in 1969 on
Verve/MGM. How much did you write on it and did you play drums as well?

Yeah, I wrote a song called “Nobody’s Gonna
Take Me” and I played drums on every cut. I didn’t really want to because my
skills as a drummer had eroded a bit as I had not played much. I wanted a band
sound and I wanted the same drummer on the whole album but couldn’t get anybody
to be available for the whole project. I also produced the album with guitarist
Barry Rillera and the engineer, mixing and arranging, Bobby would get bored and
leave.

Where did you perform?

All the major Universities in America and
clubs like the Coconut Grove in Hollywood. We played in Japan and the
Phillipines and were regulars in Las Vegas. We had sell-out crowds, we were a
very popular act at the (legendary) Sands Hotel in Vegas. I was with the
Righteous Brothers for over 4 years. I got really good by the time Bobby decided
to take a break. I wanted to carry on but Bobby didn’t want to so he broke the
act.

You also appeared on many TV shows.

Yeah, we did the Smothers Brothers and Glen
Campbell’s Good Time Hour amongst others (note: both can be found on YouTube.
They did a great Sam & Dave medley on the Smothers Brothers Show).

Around the same time, you signed a record
deal with Columbia Records as a solo artist.

Yeah, Jerry Fuller left Challenge Records
and went to work for Columbia. I recorded 3 singles including “I Got The Best
Of You”. I had a dual contract with both Columbia and Verve/MGM which is quite
unusual. Jerry discovered Gary Puckett (and the Union Gap) and he had the songs
that became hits for Gary like “Young Girl” and “Woman Woman”. I was supposed
to record them before he did but my previous label Challenge would not let me
go. I had to record an album to close the contract. It’s called “How Can I
Forget” and has recently resurfaced on iTunes and other digital downloads
outlets. One single was released at the time called “Drown In My Broken Dreams
/ Always Leaving, Always Gone”.

To close the subject on the 60’s, what do
you miss the most and the least about that decade?

Well, to me that was one the most
interesting eras of music because it was very experimental.

And very creative…

Yeah, a lot of creativity. The artistry was
being allowed to happen. The record companies were more or less standing back
and just taking what the artists gave them and then marketing it. Whereas later
on, what they did was tell the artists what song to do to make it easier for
them to sell it. Instead of the marketers saying “Just give me your art and
I’ll market it”, they say “We want this so we can make it easier for our
marketing department to sell it”. That wasn’t happening in the 60’s. I don’t
think that Jimi Hendrix would have made it today. Or The Doors, or a lot of
bands like Crosby, Still, Nash & Young. I don’t think they would have
passed the front door. Even The Eagles. Because they were different, they were
creating something entirely new. Even Otis Redding. I mean, who sounds like
Otis Redding? Nobody. They would say, “Well you don’t sound enough like so and
so therefore we’re not going to sign you”. But in those days, it was much more
open policy and it was a great era of music. The 50’s had some great moments
too. Then in the 70’s & 80’s and even the 90’s, the marketing took control
because they could see the huge amount of money that was being made.

We are now in the 70’s… In the
mid-Seventies, you were in a band called OASIS, with a real hot Soul/Funk sound
like Tower Of Power.

Yeah, we had 5 vocalists, we had a great
arranger and had a really good writer in Coleman Head. We had a lot of good
ingredients vocally so it worked out. It was one of the best bands I was with.
I think The Knickerbockers and Oasis were two of the best bands I’ve ever been
with in terms of vocals and cohesiveness together, as far as a unit, as far as
playing in a band.

Did you sing in Oasis?

Oh yeah, I was the lead-singer.

Did you record anything?

Yeah. Jerry Fuller recorded and produced an
album for us up in San Francisco at Wally Heider studio. It never came to
fruition because I think we just didn’t know what we were doing enough. Jerry
got us some potential deals but not with any major labels. And the business at
that time was changing. There were more smaller independent labels starting to
happen. There were a couple of them that wanted to release our stuff but we were
trying to get a major record deal. And then the band started breaking up! The
bass player Victor Conte hem… of the steroids scandal fame, you know who he is?

He’s Bruce’s cousin, isn’t he?

Yeah, he got embroiled in a big steroids
scandal with other athletes.

Yes I heard about that…

Yeah well, he was kind of pushy as far as
telling Jerry Fuller what he wanted out of the record companies. Jerry called
me and said “ What’s this guy want?” (laugh) “Who does he think he is?” you
know… So he kind of broke up the band in terms of… I didn’t want to play with
him anymore. I got fed up with him. And so did the trombone player Jim Waller.
Jim was the guy who started Oasis, he put it together from the ground up and he
got fed up with Victor. He was a tough guy to get along with.

Bruce Conte was not in that band, was he?

No, Bruce and I formed another band called
Hot Street.

Yeah, Hot Street…

That was a good band too.

Was it a similar Soul/Funk type of sound?

Yeah, but we had more of a universal
appeal. Hot Street was a real good club act because we did some Top 40
material. I did some Blues material like in a Ray Charles big band sort of way
and we did all The Stones material. So it was a mixture of Top 40, Blues,
original music which we had and we even did some of Coleman’s tunes. It was
kind of an interesting little package. The line-up did change a few times.

We had Julian Molina on bass and a guy by
the name of Elliot Smith on keyboards. It was me, Bruce, Elliot, Julian and a
girl singer, Terry Smith. We also had Louis Pain on keys. Then we had another
mixture with Chester Thompson on keys from The Tower of Power who started
playing with Santana. He was in the band and we had a bass player by the name
of Gary Calvin and that was another good style. But every time we changed
players, the band would change a little bit. Which is OK, you know, it went
from this to that to the other thing but it was always the same school of
songs. It kind of had a Tower of Power, Doobie Brothers, a San Francisco City
band kind of sound.

Yeah, you were playing mainly in the Bay
Area of San Francisco, weren’t you?

Pretty much, yeah… we played all over the
whole Bay Area from the Southern part all the way down to St Louis Obispo, all
the way up to San Ramon and everywhere in between. Redwood City, Burlington, we
played all the cities throughout the Bay Area for 2 years. That was tough
because we played 4 or 5 one-nighters in different clubs every week.

Were you living in Northern California at
the time?

Yeah! I had moved from Fresno to the South
of the Bay Area.

You’re now back in the Bay Area after
spending a few years in Vegas. Tell us a bit more about your time in Sin City.

I put a band together, the Jimmy Walker
Band, with some good musicians I knew in town. Pat Marlin on
keyboards/saxophone, Carl Gottman on bass, Tim Manion on guitar. Tim moved to
California so we got TK Kellman who used to play with Bobby Darin. This was a
really good band and we played all over town, including BB King’s. Most of the
times I sang upfront, that’s what I really want to do.

You’re not exactly shy (laugh)

No, absolutely not! I’m really good with an
audience. I have a lot of experience of being up front and that’s what I love
to do. I mean, all through The Knickerbockers, Buddy would play drums and I was
the other front man. And of course I did that for over 4 years with Bobby
Hatfield as the Righteous Brothers.

How do you keep your voice in shape?

You know, I sing better now than ever
before. I don’t drink, smoke, take drugs, anything.

Not even the odd glass of wine sometimes?

No, nothing. I just wanted to see what it
would be like to be completely clear and free of any kind of altering
substances. So I quit drinking over ten years ago. I used to smoke Marijuana
and I just got fed up with it, and just said “Enough of that!”.

That’s great but you don’t miss the glass
of wine though? (laugh)

No, actually I don’t miss it at all. And I
used to love a glass of wine! But I just decided… once I make up my mind about
something, I’m kind of stubborn. I really wanted to feel what it was like to be
completely free of any crutches, substances, you know, and just to use my own
mind and my own self to see what it was like. And I like it! It’s a neat thing.

So while in Vegas you recorded the album
“Playing to Win”.

Yeah, I wrote all the tunes, all the lyrics
and the melodies. A friend of mine, Jeff Palmer, did all the keyboard work and
it’s all sampled. All the drums are samples. It really sounds like a band but
it’s not! He did all the chord changes and most of the arranging and I did all the
writing and the singing. It’s all me. I even did the vocal backgrounds.

What does it sound like?

You know, it’s a mixture of stuff. The
closest thing to describe it would be a kind of Pop/Rhythm’&’ Blues album.
There are different beats, different kind of feels. A little Johnny Guitar
Watson, a little Steely Dan, a little this, that and the other. I am a Soul
& Blues singer but I don’t like to be labelled.

Where can we find it?

It’s available for downloads on CD Baby,
iTunes and all the main digital outlets.

What’s your current project?

In the past few months, I have performed
live with 2 really good musicians, Blues guitarist Alvon Johnson and bass
player Bill McCubbin.

I’ve wrote some new songs and I plan to
record them for a new album. I’m also working on doing a tour in Europe. I
never played there and I think my style of music would get over really well.
Europe has more of an open mind artistically than in America. They’re far more
advanced as far as listening to what you do, rather than saying “No, I like
this and I want you to play that”. It’s less plastic and there’s more respect
for artists like me.

... a place where musicians can express themselves ...

Psychedelic Folk issue available

Dedicated to British psychedelic folk. New issue of printed version projected from the well-known, leading psych on-line site It’s Psychedelic Baby. After the previous issue covering exclusively the US psychedelic folk scene (IPB 002, 2016), this new issue covers the 1960s and 1970s British folk scene, with exclusive interviews of members from acts such as Fresh Maggots, Comus, Mellow Candle, Dr Strangely Strange, Spirogyra, C.O.B., Incredible String Band, Fairport Convention, Pererin, Courtyard Music Group, Magic Carpet, Sunforest, Oberon, etc. Also includes a few pages of record reviews. Cover by Justin Jackley.